Top tips for newcomers

These are just some of the things I wish I knew when I started slimming world!

Put your 1/3 speed food on your plate first, that way you are getting the right amount of speed in! The reason why? When you put the speed veggies on (that are naturally low in calories) you limit the calories on your plate straight away.

Do a meal plan! Looking up new ideas and recipes will give you ideas for meals that you can make from your fridge and freezer and will help keep you on track.

Vary your meals, the same meals can get boring so get experimenting!

Don’t be hard on yourself! Everyone is human, we all have days where we want that biscuit, ice cream or have a takeaway! Draw a line and make the next thing that goes in your mouth food optimising! Being hard on yourself will make it harder to stick to the plan!

‘I only lost half a pound’, Half a pound is still half a pound, it’s better than gaining weight right? That’s half a pound towards your goal.

Be proud that you are making the right decisions, not embarrassed, you are doing this for you!

Drink plenty of water! With a high fibre diet it’s important to keep drinking to make sure you are….. regular, shall we say?

Just because you are changing your lifestyle doesn’t mean you can’t have fun! Invite friends round but make food optimising meals whether its a roast, chilli, barbeque or fakeaway like ‘kebab’, ‘pizza’ or ‘Chinese’.

Don’t deprive yourself or you will be making this change very difficult for yourself. You have syns there for a reason, use them!

Just because a food is ‘unlimited’ doesn’t always mean you can stuff your face with them! There is still a recommended portion size on the side of pasta or rice packets or for you guys 100g dry pasta 75g dry rice per person! Cook more, then can go back IF you are still hungry!

If making a pasta dish lay everything on a plate so that you have at least 1/3 speed food in your meal. Ideally, you would lay out the speed on your plate still but if you lay it out this way you still get your speed!

Be prepared or prepare to fail. I always have to have something quick and snacky on hand otherwise I can pick at the wrong things whether that be veggie sticks with dip, fruit, hifi bars or cooked chicken or ham in the fridge.

If you like alcohol try a spirit rather than beer or wine as with a diet tonic, sparkling water or soda like coke or lemonade are a lot lower in syns!

DONT STARVE YOURSELF, this is a way of life where you can eat almost anything you want! Starving yourself is likely to make you gain weight!

These are just some of my and my followers suggestions, feel free to add yours in the comments they could really help someone!